Year 7 form set up September

[Hopebridge]

My DS's school is trying something new this year. 7 form groups and they do core subjects in the form groups. They will also do classes across all forms to mix things up. Not streamed apparently. All children will have individual timetables. Sounds rather chaotic and confusing (son is stressing already because none of his school friends are in his form 😬). Do anyone else's children's schools do this with success? Thank you :)

Ours are trying something similar. Maths, science and languages are in sets, all other subjects are mixed ability across all of the form groups. This is for Year 9. A long email explaining what’s changing but no explanation for the reason. When we joined they were in sets, then it changed to mixed ability, now back to sets for some subjects. I’m in favour of sets as long as it’s managed effectively so that pupils can move between them if need be. I always think the ones in the middle set get forgotten.

My school has different form groups to lesson groups - it's fine. Good for them to get used to having different kids in their classes, and can be helpful if some of the kids are annoying that they get a break from them in different classes.

Seems back to front to me.

I would expect, if anything, to be set for maths which is core, maybe other core, and then not set for humanities, arts etc.

Good to mix them up so they get to know others in school. Individual timetables are pretty standard in secondary.

It may be they are returning to what they did pre covid. In covid they would have reduced mixing.

In our school they are taught as a form all year for all subjects (except DT due to topic rotation). They are fed up of each other now and a little mixing up in year 8 will do them good.

Mixing up of my older one has been good but didn't start until Year 8. I don't mind mixing as it will allow new friendships to form. I do imagine lots of them getting lost but guess they are all in the same boat 😅🙈 I guess will know more when he gets his individual timetable.

All sounds positive though :) thank you.

We had this in my secondary school in 1st and 2nd year.

You had your "House" classes, where you studied the core subjects - maths, English, History, Geography, languages etc; then you had your practical groups which were smaller (in my year we had 5 practical groups) - PE, Art, Graphic Communication, HE etc. which allowed you to meet others and make friends outside of your House group and I think it worked really well.

I should caveat this with the fact that my school had about 420 pupils, with about 80 in a year group (small Scottish country school) so the logistics perhaps weren't as scary in a way as trying to organise individual timetables for the number of pupils particularly in the more populated areas in England.

My friend (not in the UK) has a child who just finished her Y7 equivalent school year. The year before (Y6) she did all lessons with the same class, then this year no two pupil schedules were the same, didn’t even have a set group for core subjects (they did have a form group but that was just for registration at the beginning of the day). But she thought it worked well as her DD got to know more in her year than if stuck with her form group the whole time. Once they know where all the classrooms are, and how to get from one classroom to the next, it won’t be a problem, and I’m sure they are lenient on lateness the first few weeks.

I think they have had issues in the past year 7's of not mixing the forms which has prompted the move. Sure it will all work out. :)